They want to end the 2011 sequestration that caps defense spending.
The U.S. military is requesting over $30 billion to improve combat readiness and to stay ahead of “near-peer competitors,” says the Associated Press. A panel of four-star officers, one from each branch, testified today before the House Armed Services Committee and claimed that mandatory caps on defense spending are crippling the military’s ability to respond to threats across the globe.
According to the AP report, Adm. William Moran, the Navy’s vice chief of operations, claimed that more than half of all naval aircraft can’t fly due to maintenance problems and a lack of spare parts. Gen. Daniel Allyn, the Army’s vice chief of staff, claimed that “only three of the Army’s more than 50 brigade combat teams have all the troops, training, and equipment needed to fight at a moment’s notice.”
The Army is requesting $8.2 billion, the Navy wants $12 billion, the Marines are seeking $4.2 billion, and the Air Force is looking for $6.2 billion.
During Obama’s first term, you may recall, the 2011 Budget Control Act (BCA) resulted in “sequestration,” or a series of automatic budget caps, after a committee of legislators failed to agree to a deficit-reduction package. As the Center for Strategic and International Studies noted, “For defense, the budget caps represent a reduction of roughly $1 trillion over 10 years compared to what the president had proposed in his [fiscal year] 2012 budget request.”
Read the rest at Reason.
